As organizations strive to improve their quality of service and efficiency, increasingly they are turning to electronic commerce (e-Commerce) to achieve these goals. Generally described, e-Commerce is commercial activity conducted on networks such as closed private networks or the Internet.
Historically, e-Commerce was conducted on private networks. Large organizations developed Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and financial institutions implemented Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). Both EDI and EFT were used by these respective industries to transact business primarily between other members within the same industry. More recently, the proliferation of the Internet as an open system that can be inexpensively accessed by persons around the world has created a shift in the desired network environment for conducting business. Small and large organizations alike are looking to plug-in to the Internet for conducting business, particularly for the distribution and acquisition of products and/or information. In addition to organizations, private individuals also are turning to the Internet as a means for conducting a vast amount of their daily activities. One reason for this growth has been the convenience and efficiency of locating products and information on the Internet. By the same token, businesses have found the Internet and e-Commerce to be advantageous in facilitating and improving traditionally time consuming tasks such as selling products, invoicing, controlling inventories and communicating with suppliers and customers.
Another area of commerce that is of concern to organizations today is mobile commerce (m-Commerce). While somewhat related to e-Commerce, m-Commerce, or “wireless Internet” as it is sometimes referred to, has some distinct and unique features that set it apart. These features include, among others, appearance, capabilities and protocols. There are evolving standards and protocols in the mobile arena, along with a cascade of software and hardware options. While not all of these options will be viable, the concept and the offerings in m-Commerce are dynamic and are continuously evolving. In particular, customers and knowledge workers are no longer tethered to their desktop personal computer (PC) in order to access information. They can retrieve and process data anywhere and at anytime with a mobile connection to information. Organizations need to be able to provide compelling offerings for m-Commerce, build infrastructures that are suited for this area, and build business models that work for m-Commerce rather than just being wired models that are emulated and ported into the wireless realm. In other words, the technology must be dynamic and modular so that businesses may evolve quickly over time. In addition, the mobile business model must be one that captures the value of products and services in the wireless space.
A typical e-Commerce solution for an organization requires an infrastructure to support deployment and ongoing utilization, in addition to the design, analysis, implementation and integration of the web application. Furthermore, the organization is faced with issues relating to locating the necessary manpower and expertise necessary to attain the objectives of the e-Commerce solution. In addition to issues of manpower and infrastructure, there are concerns related to identifying and incorporating the appropriate functions to support consumer, business and commerce needs. As is readily understood and appreciated, fulfillment of these requirements involves a considerable amount of time. The nature of a global economy and the intense business competition that currently exist require organizations to expedite the deployment of any and all advantageous systems and solutions, while still maintaining a high quality of service and flexibility in their offerings.
Organizations also must make decisions regarding selection of a package-based environment or a home-grown customized solution for their entry into the ‘new age’ commerce environment. As is expected, there are advantages and disadvantages with each available option. A customized solution has the inherent disadvantages of locating the necessary expertise and allocating the required design and development time, which, as previously discussed, often are precluded by the fast paced nature of today's commerce. Accordingly, this suggests an inherent advantage to a package-based system. However, the advantages of package-based environments, which further include total integration, single source and support, are offset by other issues. These offset issues include developer/integrator learning curve, initial data loads, system installation and other similar costs that can be found with the initial version of any pre-packaged software or system. In fact, the benefits of commerce application systems can be fully realized only by an ongoing commitment to the package. Such commitment includes dealing with some of the total cost of ownership issues, such as the requirement for extensive training and exposure, dependence on vendor upgrade schedules and support, commitment to non-coding engineering activities, and the inevitable trade-off of increased features for ease of use. A package with a wide variety of features and flexibility tends to require more effort on the part of the end user both to familiarize themselves with the package and to become efficient at using it.
In addition to all of the needs that thus far have been discussed, a particular problem area exists with regard to populating e-Commerce data stores with necessary information. Generally, most organizations provide administrative screens for data entry and/or customized software programs for accessing existing data stores. The problem with this approach is that existing data stores usually are not designed for, or capable of, handling access by entities that are external to the organization, either from a security perspective or a user-friendly perspective. Accordingly, there exists a need to provide a system which enables third parties to easily access, load and prepare information for inclusion within an e-Commerce data store.
Traditionally, electronic stores (e-Stores) or other online purchasing venues that depend on dynamic information require vendors to manually input information. Needless to say, this method is error-prone and can be rather expensive. Consequently, another approach that has been used is offline data loaders that require the vendor to have Local Area Network or Wide Area Network connectivity to a back-end database server which contains the relevant information for the e-Store. With this approach, security issues and required infrastructure tend to complicate and limit practicality.
Another approach has been for a vendor to send updated information to an individual having local access to the database server and that person subsequently entering the information. However, this often results in unnecessary delay in getting data and information moved into production for consumer access.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a system and method which permits direct Internet access to production systems for data upload from a variety of vendor systems. Further, there exists a need for a system and method which provide the ability to launch a fully functional, highly flexible e-Store without the delays usually incident to design and development of custom solutions. Also needed are a system and method which provide adequate flexibility so as to be utilized for internal purchasing control as well as other functions that are necessary to support an e-Store. For those on-line purchasing venues that deal with multiple vendors, there is a further need to provide multi-vendor sales from a single site.